Electronic Fence Dog Training

Learning new boundaries and respecting the hidden fence

With the Invisible Fence brand system installed and the dog collars fitted, it
was time to begin the training. The dogs had to be taught
to stay away from the area cordoned off by the hidden
fence.

The first step was to review the Invisible Fence training video.
The conditioning was fairly simple, really. You place
small training flags in the ground to mark the
boundaries of the hidden fence's electrical field.
This is to provide the dog with visual cues,
since in most cases there's no real boundary
(like our wooden fence) that the dog will
understand.

After we had watched the video, the training
began. Each dog was trained individually. The
owner and the leashed dog approach the hidden
fence. As soon as the collar starts beeping, the
owner runs away from the fence and enthusiastically
encourages the dog to follow with lots of praise
when he or she does. This process is repeated
over and over. The idea is to associate the warning
beeps  and the crossing of the flags 
with the positive action of moving away from the
hidden fence.

The shock delivered by these electrodes is more surprising than painful

At some point the dog has to learn about the
penalty for ignoring the beeping, though. So part
of the training is to let the dog get shocked
by the collar. This may sound cruel, but the shock
is more surprising than it is painful. And it
often takes only one shock for the dogs to learn
the lesson that ignoring the beeping has unpleasant
consequences.

Conditioning a dog to stay within the
electronic fence boundaries doesn't take very long.
Once you're confident that the dog has learned
the boundaries, you remove the flags so that
the only warning is from the beeping collar.